


the lion, the witch, and the...

by starkly



Series: you've been thunderstruck [30]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Familiars, M/M, Shapeshifting, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28311024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkly/pseuds/starkly
Summary: Tony's never felt the need to have a familiar before. His magic's been just fine without one. Then he helps a lion trapped in the woods and ends up with a little more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Tony Stark/Thor
Series: you've been thunderstruck [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064666
Comments: 3
Kudos: 124





	the lion, the witch, and the...

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for NaNoWriMo 2020 and [posted here](https://aleator.tumblr.com/post/637168168192868352) on my tumblr writing blog. This fic was proofread before being uploaded here but is otherwise unchanged.
> 
> Prompts taken from the AU-gust 2020 challenge list on Twitter. Day Thirty: Magic AU.

Tony has never taken a familiar. It’s not that he does or doesn’t need one, it’s just unusual that at nearly forty years of age it hasn’t really crossed his mind. He’s never met a familiar he felt particularly attached to, and he’s gotten along with his work just fine without the assistance. The other witches and wizards and magic folk he’s come across all inquire about it, but he never has anything interesting to say in response. He lives in his little cottage on the edge of town and does his work as a healer perfectly well and that is that.

He’s in the forest one morning gathering fresh ingredients for his spells and potions when he hears the sound of a monster yowling in the distance. These are mostly peaceful woods, so if something dangerous has gotten too close to town, someone needs to take care of it. And that someone will just have to be him.

So with his basket full of flowers and mushrooms and other assorted foraged items he goes deeper into the woods, searching for the source of that eerie sound.

He finds it a few minutes later, trapped amongst the trees and bushes of the forest--a great beast of a lion, larger than any creature that normally roams these woods. Its front paw is caught in a trap, and even from a distance he can see the trap is bespelled so that any creature caught within it cannot escape on its own. Tony narrows his eyes at it, ready to have words with whoever would put such a thing in these woods.

But first he has to deal with the creature caught inside it.

He sets down his basket and approaches slowly, hands open to show he’s unarmed. The lion smells him coming--or perhaps hears him--before it sees him, and it swings around toward him with a mighty roar. The lion lunges and swipes with one free paw, but with the other stuck in the trap it can’t go far.

“How dare you attempt to trap me here, human?” the lion says in a deep voice, and Tony doesn’t even bat an eye. “Release me at once so I may tear the flesh from your bones.”

“I didn’t set this trap, but I’m going to try and get you out of it,” Tony says as calmingly as he can, hands still up as he moves closer. “Though if I had, threatening to eat me wouldn’t make me too keen to release you.”

“Oh, I would not eat a human,” the lion says, and Tony swears he can see it wrinkle its nose up. “They would taste abysmal.”

“Good to know,” Tony murmurs, and he slowly crouches down near the lion to inspect his paw in the trap. He tenses up as he tears his gaze away from the lion’s teeth and claws, but his trust is rewarded with no tearing of flesh from bone and he slowly relaxes.

“I think I can trace the magic back to its creator,” he says as he pokes at the energy surrounding the trap.

“Good. Tell me who set this foul trap so I may--”

“Yes, I know, tear the flesh and all that. The person who made the spell may not have been the one who laid the trap.”

He ignores the magic for now and begins to work on opening up the trap. The lion shifts restlessly for a few minutes, eventually settling down and watching Tony. Finally Tony is able to pull back the top half of the trap and release the lion’s paw, the lion growling lowly to mask the pain.

“No, don’t stand up,” Tony says to it, holding out a hand. “Wait here.”

He gets up and brushes dirt from his pants before going back to retrieve his basket of supplies. Then he returns to the lion and kneels back down with the basket at his side. Surprisingly, the lion sits patiently while Tony works, watching him with a piercing stare, one eye ice blue and the other a piercing gold.

Eventually Tony has a poultice made, and with a few quietly spoken words he imbues it with his healing magic. Ever so gently he puts the poultice over the lion’s injured paw, smiling when the lion squirms but doesn’t say anything.

“There. Give it a few minutes and you’ll be good enough to walk,” he says, sitting back on his heels and putting the rest of his supplies back in the basket.

The lion stays still and continues watching him, but Tony doesn’t pay any mind. He goes back to inspecting the trap, looking for any magical signatures on it, until those few minutes have passed and he turns his attention back to the lion’s paw.

“You are a very trusting human,” the lion says, muscles flexing beneath its sinewy skin.

“You don’t strike me as someone I shouldn’t trust,” Tony replies.

The lion cocks its head. “How do you figure?”

“You haven’t eaten me yet, have you?”

“I don’t--”

“Eat humans, yes,” Tony says with a smile. “Look. The bleeding stopped.”

He gestures to the lion’s paw, where the poultice has healed the worst of the lion’s injury. It will take a while longer to be fully healed, but he doubts the lion wants to sit here in the woods that long.

Tony takes a moment then to disable the trap so it can’t hurt anyone else, then looks back up at the lion.

“If you come back to my cottage I can make something stronger to move the healing along faster,” he offers, standing back up with his basket. The lion watches him warily and he adds, “You don’t have to. You should be able to walk now.”

Growling, the lion moves to stand on all four paws, only to wince and lift his injured paw from the ground. After a long moment of consideration, the lion looks back at Tony and says, “I will come with you.”

With a smile, Tony turns and leads the way back through the woods to his cottage, unconcerned with having such a large, dangerous creature trailing behind him. After a few moments, however, he doesn’t hear the rustling of a lion moving through the underbrush behind him, but of something else. Turning back, he sees not a lion but a man, tall and broad like a lion, with long golden hair and the same mismatched eyes. He’s holding his injured hand to his chest and isn’t wearing a single stitch of clothing.

“Okay,” Tony says calmly, like this happens to him every day. “It’s this way.”

He continues on toward his cottage in silence, reminding himself to be polite and not ogle the mystical creature following him home. The lion hasn’t hurt him yet but when it comes to magical creatures one can never be too careful. It really would be foolish to make it this far only to mess up because he wanted a peek.

Thankfully there is no one waiting for Tony at his cottage and he’s able to get the naked shapeshifter inside without anyone seeing.

“Have a seat,” he says, setting down the basket and going to fetch a blanket from his bed. He delicately drapes it over the lion for some modesty, then turns toward his workbench, which is currently a mess of bottles and beakers and scraps of paper covered in notes.

“This might take a while. Are you hungry?” he asks. The lion hesitates a moment, then nods. “Do you have a name?”

More hesitation, but then-- “Thor.”

Tony smiles and goes to quickly put together something for Thor to eat while he works on a spell to hasten the healing of his paw. Er, hand.

“I’m Tony,” he tells him, finding some leftover stew that should be fine to eat cold and ladling it into a bowl. When he brings it over to Thor, he takes a moment to look him over more openly, wondering if this is just what he naturally looks like or if he’s purposely making himself so attractive.

“Don’t worry, it’s not human,” he jokes, and Thor rolls his eyes but takes the bowl from him.

“I would be worried about you if it was,” Thor says as he carefully balances the bowl in his lap and uses his good hand to hold the spoon.

Now that Thor’s settled, Tony starts making something stronger for Thor’s injury. He gets out the right ingredients, finds the right page in his book, and gets to work. Thor is mostly quiet, setting aside the empty bowl once he’s finished eating and just watching Tony while he works. Eventually he gets up and goes over to Tony’s bed instead, lying down with a yawn. Tony glances over but doesn’t stop him, letting him sleep if he needs to.

When the potion is finished, Tony leaves it to simmer and lets Thor keep sleeping, puttering around the cottage in the meantime and cleaning up a bit before he sits down with a book in the rocking chair by the hearth. He reads for a bit until he dozes off too, the book sliding out of his hands and into his lap.

He wakes a little while later to find his book on the floor and Thor staring at him from across the room. Tony smiles at him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and bending down to pick up the book he dropped.

“Did you see the potion I left for you?” he asks, not concerned that Thor was apparently watching him sleep.

Thor nods and holds up his previously injured hand. “I took it. It’s a lot better now.”

“Good,” Tony says with a sigh, sitting back in his chair. “I’m glad. You’re free to stay the night if you’d like before you move on.”

Thor is silent for a long time--long enough that Tony starts to think he’s said something terribly wrong--but then Thor finally speaks up to say,

“I think I’ll stay.”

Caught by surprise, Tony just says, “What?”

“You don’t have a familiar,” Thor says with confidence. “I’ll stay.”

“You want to be my familiar?” Tony asks, not sure he’s understanding this correctly. He’s never had any kind of spirit or creature or what have you just decide it wants to be his familiar before. “I can’t just-- You’re a lion. I don’t have the space.”

Surprising him once again, Thor gets up without saying a word, the blanket slipping off him. Tony politely averts his eyes, and the next thing he knows a golden-brown cat is padding quietly over to him and hopping up into his lap.

Startled, Tony sets aside the book and rubs a hand over the cat’s back, listening to Thor purr at his touch. Thor looks up at him with those same gold and blue eyes, and Tony scratches under his chin, smiling.

“I suppose you can stay, if you’d like,” Tony says. “I still have to find out who set that trap in the woods. You can help. But you can’t--”

“I know, I know,” Thor says with a sigh, and Tony holds back a laugh at that big lion voice coming from this small cat. “No tearing of flesh.”

“And no eating,” Tony adds, laughing out loud this time as Thor nips at his fingers with his little cat teeth.

He pulls his hand away and goes back to petting Thor instead, soothing him until he’s a loudly purring, relaxed ball of fluff in Tony’s lap. Tony smiles and thinks that maybe having a familiar won’t be so bad after all.


End file.
